Law & Disorder —

Canadians, make the Internet your valentine

A Canadian network neutrality group wants you make the Internet your valentine …

Canadian network neutrality backers have a plea for the lonely-hearted everywhere: make the Internet your Valentine in 2009!

That rallying cry could be interpreted in a number of ways (most extremely dirty), but SaveOurNet.ca is actually asking for people to make the Internet their Valentine by... writing a note to the country's telecoms regulator. The CRTC has similar powers to the FCC in the US, and is currently engaged on a wide-ranging examination of network management rules. The agency is expected to issue rules late this year that might (or might not) put the kibosh on all sorts of openly discriminatory practices currently allowed in Canada.

Case in point: the CRTC recently decided that Bell Canada had the right to single out P2P traffic on its networks and throttle it 10 hours a day, even when selling bandwidth wholesale to other ISPs. The CRTC found nothing illegal about the practice under current law, though the issue did stir up a tremendous amount of interest and eventually led to the current investigation into network management.

SaveOurNet.ca has provided a form for people to e-mail CRTC head Konrad von Finckenstein about their love of the Internet.